What do I stand to lose by working for 7 1/2 hours?

MartBear

Hi,

My wife and I currently claim UC. My wife is disabled, I am her registered carer. Our total UC is 1760, and then I get £80pw carers.

I work a few hours a week in a charity shop, checking their electrical donations whilst my wife is on bedrest. I have been offered the chance to make this a paid position, for 2 days a week, for 4 hours a day. with a 15 minute break, which will enable me to check on my wife should I need to call etc. Its pretty good, very unlikely id find any other kind of job that will give me this freedom, and they are also fine for me to just drop everything and leave should I suffer from a migraine (I suffer from cluster headaches and migraines, and was written off work for them myself but have managed too calm the frequency) the charity are very understanding, and as i said, very unlikely Id get this offer anywhere else, even just for these small hours.

the pay is minimum wage.  but its gonna be roughly £100 p/w which would be REALLY useful in the present climate. So I got in touch with UC, now my wife is the main claim, I'm her partner (even though it says we're both equal in a joint claim on UC, unlike ESA) I messaged my job coach constantly during our migration. I never got a response. I have tried the last 2 weeks of November and all of december for info on this job offer... and I get no response. none. So I log in to my wifes account and leave a message, and get an answer in 3 days. Not great, but better than being ignored.

I asked what i risk losing, as I was under the impression that just 2 hours work would jeapordise Carers Allowance prior to Rachel Reeves saying we could work longer now, but I dont know when that comes in to affect, and if I do get £100 a week and it doesn't affect CA, what will it do to our UC payments.

their simple reply was "We dont deal with UC, you'll need to call and ask them" (I have issues with talking to people on a phone, its the reason i relied on the journal)

They never said anything about the rest of the question, and I've since asked for clarification on what it means for UC, but I've of course, after 7 days got no help (not including bank holidays or Sundays). I've tried to all CA as well for help from them, and I've just been on never ending hold for an hour before my phone just ends the call, thats happened 3 times.

Hoping someone here can help?

when we were on ESA, my wife (and only my wife, because partners dont exist to them) could work 16 hours without it affecting any benefits whatsoever. Which she did before she got worse, but I was told if i worked I'd be removed from the ESA claim, and my wages would start to affect what my wife was getting... or something like that, it was a while back, but the better off report worked out that me working for 8 hours would lose us £300 a month so i got told to turn it down by the actual job centre.

But I really want to do this short shift job, i love helping the charity. it would make me feel better about myself, and hopefully help with ever increasing bills. But I simply cant afford to take it if it means we end up losing so much as £10 a week, and at that point i'd be as well off just staying as a volunteer

Spoonie_Turtle

Presuming your wife has LCW/RA (she was on either the WRAG or Support Group on ESA) you'll have the work allowance on your UC claim.  This means they'll ignore the first £404 you earn in a month if you claim help with housing costs, or the first £673 if you don't.

They then deduct 55% of earnings above the work allowance from your UC payment.

As you know there are rules for Carers Allowance, you can currently earn up to £151/week.  However you don't need to claim CA to still get the carer element of UC, and CA is deducted in full from UC anyway, so even if you were to earn too much for CA, overall you wouldn't lose out by no longer claiming it.

I'm not very well versed with transitional protection but I can't think of any reason earning a little would affect it.  Others will need to confirm though, please.

Overall - if I've not forgotten anything - you stand to lose nothing, and gain potentially every penny you earn from this job.  Congratulations on finding yourself with the offer of a job and employer who fit your needs and circumstances so well!  

MartBear

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Presuming your wife has LCW/RA (she was on either the WRAG or Support Group on ESA) you'll have the work allowance on your UC claim.  This means they'll ignore the first £404 you earn in a month if you claim help with housing costs, or the first £673 if you don't.

They then deduct 55% of earnings above the work allowance from your UC payment.

As you know there are rules for Carers Allowance, you can currently earn up to £151/week.  However you don't need to claim CA to still get the carer element of UC, and CA is deducted in full from UC anyway, so even if you were to earn too much for CA, overall you wouldn't lose out by no longer claiming it.

I'm not very well versed with transitional protection but I can't think of any reason earning a little would affect it.  Others will need to confirm though, please.

Overall - if I've not forgotten anything - you stand to lose nothing, and gain potentially every penny you earn from this job.  Congratulations on finding yourself with the offer of a job and employer who fit your needs and circumstances so well!  

Thanks for that information. What you've said goes with what I had in my head from reading bits and pieces before, but never getting confirmation or any help at all from DWP with questions just really made me concerned and I doubted it 

Thanks for the congrats too. Really hoping it all works out smoothly now